A number of different evaluation systems are known for evaluating individual components of an individual's physical fitness, such as heart rate, blood pressure, hand strength, isometric strength, general weight, percentage body fat as determined by skin fold measurements, flexibility or range of motion, treadmill energy expenditure and bicycle energy expenditure. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,898,182 describes an apparatus for evaluation of heart fitness. While each such an evaluation system can measure, e.g., a particular fitness component, each component generally requires the observation and interpretation of measured parameters by an operator. Previous individual systems cannot yield an overall physical fitness evaluation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus or system for evaluating the overall physical fitness of an individual, preferably an integrated automatic computer programmed apparatus or system for evaluating overall physical fitness indices of an individual.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a method for readily evaluating overall physical fitness indices of an individual.